Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief

Summary

How can students with widely varied levels of literary experience learn to write poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama — over the course of only one semester? In Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief, David Starkey offers some solutions to the challenges of teaching the introductory creative writing course: (1) concise, accessible instruction in the basics of writing poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama; (2) short models of literature to analyze, admire and emulate; (3) inventive and imaginative assignments that inspire and motivate.

In the third edition, in response to reviewer requests, the literature and writing prompts have been significantly refreshed and expanded, while new treatment of getting published and the growing trend of hybrid creative writing have been added.

Author Biography

David Starkey is Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Santa Barbara City College. He is the editor of two collections of creative writing pedagogy, Teaching Writing Creatively (1998) and Genre by Example: Writing What We Teach (2001), and he has been active in all four genres. His poetry collections include Adventures of the Minor Poet (2007); Ways of Being Dead: New and Selected Poems (2006); and Fear of Everything (2000). Several poems from his most recent collection, A Few Things You Should Know about the Weasel (2010) were featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac. His fiction has appeared in American Literary Review, Rio Grande Review, Sou’wester, and in the anthology Blue Cathedral: Contemporary Fiction for the New Millennium. His creative nonfiction has been published in Cimarron Review, Gulf Stream Magazine, Tampa Review, and in the book Living Blue in the Red States (2007), which he edited. His plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Minneapolis, Toronto, and elsewhere.

Table of Contents

Preface: A Few Words to Instructors A Few Things You Should Know About Creative Writing A Few Words About Revision

A Few Things You Should Know about the Short-Short StoryThe Elements of FictionThe Short-Short Story: Three Models Isaac Babel, “Crossing the River Zbrucz” Donald Barthelme, “The Baby”New Bonnie Jo Campbell, “Rhyme Game”Structure and Design Creating CharactersWriting DialogueSetting the SceneDeciding on Point of View, Developing Tone and Style First-Person Point of View / Second-Person Point of View / Third-Person Limited Point of View / Third-Person Omniscient Point of View / Tense / Tone and StyleGetting Started Writing the Short-Short Story>Kick-Starts: Beginning Your Story